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Sunday, December 1, 2013

At Home: Thanksgiving Decor and More

We had our favorite day of the year this past weekend, Thanksgiving! Our annual deep frying turkey get-together was in full effect by 7:30 in the morning! This was our 17th year and the celebration gets better and better. Not only do we host the party, but we also host our family dinner.

While Steve is prepping the outdoors, I take care of the inside. I set the table using a variety of collectibles from my house as well as natural items. Here are some glimpses:

We seat 18 people for dinner and I love when all of us can be together. I have to use my living room as the setting. I line up three tables in order to accommodate everyone.

I use Steve's grandmother's dishes. They are simple treasures and it reminds us about family. I use simple white paper tablecloths on the tables. Then I run burlap down the center. It adds a lot of texture. I buy the rolls of burlap at Michael's. The candle holders are from Ikea, super inexpensive. By using two sets, it makes the table feel rich.

Obviously, seating for that many people can be an issue. I use my couch as seating for 4 people. I then mix chairs from all around my house. It looks eclectic and comfortable.

This year, I wanted to put out other decorations to fill in the long center of the table. I put real cranberries into a bowl and topped it with a candle. I brought in my rooster from the kitchen as a centerpiece.

I also added these long white dishes, also from Ikea. I filled them with dried green peas. I placed a medium pumpkin and some Indian corn on top.

Outside, it looked like this:

We deep fried 13 birds this year so we needed double fryers.

This was the first bird of the day, which promptly gets carved and eaten by the partygoers. There is nothing like crispy deep fried turkey!

The crowd was full of family and many friends who are like family members. Many friends have attended since the tradition started.